Day Seven Part Four

7:10
Don is almost out of surgery. The surgeon came to us to explain all that was accomplished. They were able to operate on his hip and femur. All things considered the hip and leg are well. His elbow is good, but it was just destroyed. He may have limited use of his right arm. Time well tell. He will have to have another surgery on the left hand sometime in the future. Don will have to go to ICU tonight. He has to be on a ventilator because of his lungs. They suspect that he has signs of pneumonia so he may have to be on the ventilator for a few days. Don will be in a wheelchair for the three months that he will not be able to put weight on his left leg. The arms pose another issue for how long he will stay in this hospital. He will have to be able to move him self from other furniture to the wheelchair or almost master that in order to be released. We may be able to see Don around 11:00. Don will be remain sedated for at least a few hours and they will not try to bring him around. It will probably be tomorrow evening before he gets to go back to a regular room - however it may not be the room that he has been in thus far. Thanks for all your prayers and Just Keep Praying! We have a long way to go!

Day Seven Part Three

3:00 PM

They just gave us another update and they have now started on this elbow. Praise the Lord that he is able to keep going! Rumor has it that Don may be moved to ICU tonight. Just Keep Praying!!

Day Seven Part Two

12:00 Noon - they just called to us in the waiting room to say that things were going well in surgery. I will update when we know more. Keep praying!

Day Seven

7:50 AM

They took Don to surgery about 7:30. He had a bit of a rough night last night. He woke around 2:00AM and proceeded to take his pulse-ox sensor off his finger, took his mask off and using the bed controls, set his bed up at a 45 degree angle. (They ended putting him back on a mask yesterday evening.) His oxygen levels fell so low that they sent a respiratory therapist in to check his breathing. The tried two different masks and bumped the oxygen level back up to 10 liters. He was in the mask that had a bag at the bottom so he was getting 100% oxygen. When they cam in at 5:45, they informed us that he would probably not have surgery because his lungs were collapsing and he wouldn't be able to have surgery on that much oxygen. After about an hour and talking to several doctors, they decided to take him to surgery and to let the anesthesiologist make the final decision. They agreed to have surgery and consent was given for all surgeries needed. Now, the wait begins and they say it will be at least 10 hours to complete everything. However, if he has breathing issues they will just stop the surgeries. They will have him on breathing machine and sedated through the night to help with the whole situation. I will update through out the day.

For an update of the tube to his stomach - they removed a total of 5 liters of stomach contents through that tube. They tell us all this is pretty "normal" for his condition. Just keep praying!